William Heise Movies

A short film depicting the execution of Mary, Queen of the Scots. Mary is brought to the execution block and made to kneel down with her neck over...

Experimental film fragment made with the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, using 3/4-inch wide film.

Annabelle (Whitford) Moore performs one of her popular dances. For this performance, her costume has a pair of wings attached to her back, to suggest...

A man (Thomas Edison's assistant) takes a pinch of snuff and sneezes. This is one of the earliest Thomas Edison films and was the second motion...

Three men hammer on an anvil and pass a bottle of beer around. Notable for being the first film in which a scene is being acted out.

Early Edison short showing two men fencing.

William K.L. Dickson plays the violin while two men dance. This is the oldest surviving sound film where sound is recorded on the phonograph.

William K.L. Dickson brings his hat from his one hand to the other and moves his head slightly, as a small nod toward the audience. This was the...

Experimental film made to test the original cylinder format of the Kinetoscope and believed to be the first film shot in the United States. It shows...

The first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and possibly the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United...

They get ready to kiss, begin to kiss, and kiss in a way that brings down the house every time.

The busiest corner in Chicago. Cable cars and street traffic of all descriptions. Hundreds of shoppers. Fine perspective view looking north toward...

In a long, diaphanous skirt, held out by her hands with arms extended, Broadway dancer Annabelle Moore performs. Her dance emphasizes the movement of...

One of the pictures to be seen in the machine, for example, was that of a blacksmith shop in which two men were working, one shoeing a horse, the...

Experimental film fragment made with the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, using 3/4-inch wide film.

“A file of Spanish soldiers line up the Cubans against a blank wall and fire a volley. The flash of rifles and drifting smoke make a very...

Vaudeville dancer Amy Muller performs a portion of her stage routine, which features dancing on her toes. She dances on one toe for part of the...

Eugen Sandow, who claims to be the strongest man in the world, appears in the Edison Company's film studio.

"Firemen in working uniform, rubber coats, helmets, and boots. Thrilling rescue from burning building. Smoke effects are fine." - from the Edison...

Experimental film that follows up on the results of "Monkeyshines, No. 1". Once again, an Edison company worker moves around in front of the motion...